Bishop H.H. Brookins on Saturday disputed the findings of city investigators that he used $336,000 in federal poverty funds to renovate a dilapidated building that he secretly owned in Southwest Los Angeles.

February 16, 1990 | Glenn F. Bunting, This article was reported by Rich Connell and Tracy Wood. It was written by Bunting

Two Los Angeles city employees warned a high-ranking administrator in 1984 that Bishop H.H. Brookins allegedly misused $26,865 in federal poverty funds, but no one notified criminal investigators until after the statute of limitations for embezzlement had elapsed, according to interviews and newly obtained documents. One staff member in the city's Community Development Department, Raul M.

A major concessionaire at Los Angeles International Airport has paid Bishop H. H. Brookins about $300,000 in lobbying fees through a controversial city program intended to help disadvantaged minorities and women, Brookins said in an interview. Brookins told The Times that Host International Inc. placed him in its minority business enterprise program to pay for lobbying during the firm's unsuccessful 1986 bid to run airport gift shops.

During the last three years, scandals swirling around Mayor Tom Bradley's Administration have exposed fundamental weaknesses in a local political system once touted as a model of clean government, according to ethics experts, political scientists and elected officials. "It was mythology . . . sold to generations of Angelenos," said Eric Shockman of USC's Unruh Institute of Politics. "We are not 'the city on the hill.'

February 3, 1990 | GLENN F. BUNTING and RICH CONNELL and TRACY WOOD, This article was reported by Times staff writers Glenn F. Bunting, Rich Connell and Tracy Wood. It was written by Bunting

Bishop H. H. Brookins, a longtime Los Angeles church leader and political mentor to Mayor Tom Bradley, obtained $336,000 in federal poverty funds through a city agency to renovate a run-down office complex that he secretly owned in Southwest Los Angeles, The Times has learned. The government loans were awarded to a non-existent church corporation created by Brookins, records show.

A prominent clergyman who has guided the political careers of a number of black Los Angeles politicians said Wednesday that City Councilman Dave Cunningham has told him that he intends to resign from the post he has held for the past 13 years. The Rev. H.H. Brookins, a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a close political ally of Cunningham and Mayor Tom Bradley, told The Times that Cunningham plans to leave the City Council "for personal and family reasons."

The recent disclosures by The Times on the shenanigans at City Hall only illustrates the fact Los Angeles has the best politicians money can buy. If our mayor has no control over his staff or he is not aware of their actions and actions of people he knows who do business with the city such as Juanita St. John and Bishop H.H. Brookins, then how can he run a city of 4 million people? FRED LUE, Alhambra